Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@topspin I was thinking more like 2 vs 3 feet away, as this is the usual distances I see in queues in grocery shops.
What does that change?
Let's do it again:No mask, distance of 2 feet: virus load = A
No mask, distance of 3 feet: virus load = (2/3)^2 * A = 44.4% AMask, distance of 2 feet: virus load = 50% A
Mask, distance of 3 feet: virus load = (2/3)^2 * 50% * A = 22.2% AOkay, now "no mask, increased distance" is slightly better than "mask, same distance". Was that your point? Because, obviously, "mask and increased distance" still has your assumed reduction by 50% so it still is definitely effective.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Okay, now "no mask, increased distance" is slightly better than "mask, same distance". Was that your point?
Yes. Like, if not wearing a mask warrants a $1200 fine and a mass freakout by everyone around, shouldn't standing close to each other do that too? Wouldn't a zero-tolerance-for-standing-close-together policy be an order of magnitude more effective than zero-tolerance-for-not-wearing-mask policy? Shouldn't the distancing - physical, not social - get way more focus from both the media and the politicians alike?
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@topspin also. As I understand it, the rather pitiful protection by surgical masks is still important (at least that's how argument goes) because ultimately, the problem is binary - either you become a carrier or not.
The outcome is binary, the effect is more like a probability distribution.
And to become a carrier, you need to get transmitted a certain amount of the virus. If the mask were to cut the spread by 50%, and the inverse-square law is in effect, it effectively means the mask reduces the unsafe distance by 40%. So there exists some distance where it's safe to be in with a mask but unsafe to be without.
What is this distance?
We don't know, that's why it makes sense (under these assumptions) to use the mask when you're not at a distance (or in an environment) that you can be reasonably confident it is safe even without masks.
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Okay, now "no mask, increased distance" is slightly better than "mask, same distance". Was that your point?
Yes. Like, if not wearing a mask warrants a $1200 fine and a mass freakout by everyone around, shouldn't standing close to each other do that too? Wouldn't a zero-tolerance-for-standing-close-together policy be an order of magnitude more effective than zero-tolerance-for-not-wearing-mask policy? Shouldn't the distancing - physical, not social - get way more focus from both the media and the politicians alike?
Probably. Seems like a different discussion, though.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And to become a carrier, you need to get transmitted a certain amount of the virus. If the mask were to cut the spread by 50%, and the inverse-square law is in effect, it effectively means the mask reduces the unsafe distance by 40%. So there exists some distance where it's safe to be in with a mask but unsafe to be without.
What is this distance?
We don't know, that's why it makes sense (under these assumptions) to use the mask when you're not at a distance (or in an environment) that you can be reasonably confident it is safe even without masks.
On the other hand, the "masks save lives" campaign have made people less versed in science and statistics believe that a mask is all they need, to the point where they heartlessly mock and shame everyone who doesn't wear them even if they keep their distance. The latter part isn't important (it's just to establish I'm not talking out of my ass), but the former is. People believe they're safe in masks. So they're much less careful about keeping their distance than if they believed otherwise.
While masks certainly help under some circumstances (in the same sense a ballpoint pen is certainly deadly in the right hands) - I can't help but wonder whether the campaign for wearing the masks hasn't actually taken more lives than it saved.
Not that any of this matters. I just like pointing out all the ways in which the humanity might've accidentally made coronavirus much worse than it was. Also, I hate when people treat unproven hypotheses as settled science, and there's a lot of it in this topic.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
how do you plan to ever get those final totals?
@Luhmann said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska
As usual ... statistics. Comparing average deaths for 2020 to earlier years.
Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample: Spanish study
Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China, the University of Barcelona said on Friday (Jun 26).
The Chinese Virus folks are looking increasingly silly, too.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And on the flip side, here's a study from the Annals of Internal Medicine. (WARNING: I have no idea if these guys are legit, I found them linked from a blog called Foundation of Economic Education, which I am baselessly assuming is some conservative-leaning think tank/propagandist.)
Heh. You immediately assume the worst out of it, and yet you failed to mention the big bold warning at the very beginning that says "This article has been retracted." And it was retracted because the methods they used have the error margin larger than the values measured (meaning all numbers reported are effectively dice rolls. All of them.)
Regardless of results, there's another thing I've been thinking about. Is the inverse-square law in force when it comes to spreading the virus through face holes? If so, doesn't a mask <0.25 inch from your face make virtually zero difference compared to just standing one step farther away, even if it does block 50% of germs?
Whoops. Apparently,
My point was: masks have an effect, and while it's still possible to transmit Covid while wearing a mask, you'll be transmitting less. Of course, if you immediately apply moral hazard and take riskier actions that more-than-offset the effects of the mask, then you will immediately make everything worse and you'll be wearing an uncomfortable mask.
Here's a meta-analysis of 172 previous studies that show that a) masks are effective, and b) so is social distancing.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext#
And on the flipside again, the WHO says "don't use masks, use social distancing and extra cleaning". (Page 6 of the PDF linked here) It's distinctly possible that they think that people wearing cloth masks will take greater risks. And to back that up, here's an article that says "for health care workers [i.e., those frequently exposed], cloth masks can be worse than no mask... [plus a little bit of waffling on the same theme]"
Covid-19: Should cloth masks be used by healthcare workers as a last resort? - The BMJ
Health workers facing critical shortages of masks in the US and other countries are searching for evidence on their use. Agencies such as the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) [...]More...
So overall, my impression is that while crappy cloth masks are an improvement, they make you think you're protected, and the small improvement in protection is frequently offset by people being worse about social distancing and other protective behaviors.
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@PotatoEngineer another "funny" think to ponder. Masks are much denser than air - that's what makes them stop the virus, after all. But what it also does is capture the moisture from the air - and everything that's inside it. Including viruses. And it stays there for a long time. Few people bother to change it every hour, too - many wear one mask over multiple days, in fact. And they continue to breath through that mask all the time, inhaling everything it has captured in the meanwhile.
While the mask does make OTHERS less likely to get infected from you, how does it affect YOUR chances to get infected from others?
Also: if the outside of your mask is as infected as your lungs, does wearing it make a difference, and if so, which way does the difference go? (Actually, I'm almost sure the answer to this one is "still helps".)
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@BernieTheBernie said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I hate people, and adolescents clearly are the worst.
You are a teacher, aren't you?
Hey! Hey! Hey! Could be a parent of an adolescent. I mean...I don't think he is, but it's a reasonable conclusion.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
What is this distance?
It seems like time is also a factor. So reducing the distance increases the amount of time before you get infected.
Honestly, I have no idea what to believe at this point. I almost wish I'd just unambiguously get the fucking virus and get it over with one way or the other.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Few people bother to change it every hour, too - many wear one mask over multiple days, in fact.
How often are y'all wearing masks? Like, I put one on (cloth mask, sewn by my wife) as I walk into a store. I'm in there for maybe 30 minutes. Then I take it off as I walk outside, because fuck, that shit is hot and annoying and everything says that being outside is chill, and it's not like I'm packed in with people at than point or anything.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Honestly, I have no idea what to believe at this point.
This has been my position for a long time now. Moreover, I find it the only truly rational one (too much wishful thinking involved in either other option). Especially if this March 2019 thing from the last article I posted gets confirmed elsewhere - because it means we've had a virus circulating for a full year longer than we thought, and nobody noticed. Not even the people whose job is to compile various death statistics.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
While the mask does make OTHERS less likely to get infected from you, how does it affect YOUR chances to get infected from others?
It's to help others from getting infected by you, on the general idea that nobody knows if they're pre-symptomatic. Wearing a mask probably won't help you much; the infectious respiratory droplets will land on every part of your body, and Covid lives for a while outside the body. (Somewhere between 13 femtoseconds and 13 millenia, from what I've been hearing.) So you'll touch your clothes that have some droplets on them, eventually touch a mucous membrane, and get infected – or not – depending on how many living viruses there were in that contact, how your particular immune system handles it, the weather in Nome, and whether you've inhaled a butterfly in your sleep or not. Plus a dash of luck.
Ultimately, you'll never really know whether you wearing a mask (or whether any specific other person wearing a mask) helped you or not. Hopefully, someone will run some studies that don't get retracted and give us a little more insight into the problem. Hopefully.
Also: if the outside of your mask is as infected as your lungs, does wearing it make a difference, and if so, which way does the difference go? (Actually, I'm almost sure the answer to this one is "still helps".)
I would expect that if you're infected, then your mask will be infected shortly afterward. But either way, more viruses bad, less viruses good.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
So you'll touch your clothes that have some droplets on them, eventually touch a mucous membrane, and get infected – or not – depending on how many living viruses there were in that contact, how your particular immune system handles it, the weather in Nome, and whether you've inhaled a butterfly in your sleep or not. Plus a dash of luck.
Still - if it's okay to recommend masks on the basis of a remote chance, I think it's equally valid to oppose them for the same reason. Yes, your entire body is covered in viruses, but the mask is millimeters away from your nose and mouth all the time.
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Few people bother to change it every hour, too - many wear one mask over multiple days, in fact.
How often are y'all wearing masks?
In Poland, less often than when they were mandatory 24/7, but more often than bicycles have headlights. Outside public transport and shops - 1 in 10 people have them all the time?
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If anything, wearing a mask helps remind you and others there's an epidemic going around.
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@Zecc usually people find daily reminders that we are all doomed and the end is neigh annoying.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
So you'll touch your clothes that have some droplets on them, eventually touch a mucous membrane, and get infected – or not – depending on how many living viruses there were in that contact, how your particular immune system handles it, the weather in Nome, and whether you've inhaled a butterfly in your sleep or not. Plus a dash of luck.
Still - if it's okay to recommend masks on the basis of a remote chance, I think it's equally valid to oppose them for the same reason. Yes, your entire body is covered in viruses, but the mask is millimeters away from your nose and mouth all the time.
Moreover, your face is at the same level as other people's faces. If inverse-square law is in effect, it should theoretically have more exposure to viruses than, say, sleeves - especially when close to other people, when those 80cm down become significant.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Zecc usually people find daily reminders that we are all doomed and the end is neigh annoying.
And I find careless people annoying. All in all, this pandemic has been very inconvenient.
What I meant is a mask is a physical object which helps put your body in alert mode, when your brain is distracted and you fall into autopilot mode.
You know how often I take my hands to my face without thinking? A lot.
But also a lot less if I'm wearing a mask because, even when my hands move without thinking, there's a thing there which tells me "oh right". It also reminds me I should wash or disinfect my hands before touching anything personal (including myself
, personal items, my significant other, food, etc.)
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
how do you plan to ever get those final totals?
@Luhmann said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska
As usual ... statistics. Comparing average deaths for 2020 to earlier years.
Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample: Spanish study
Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China, the University of Barcelona said on Friday (Jun 26).
The Chinese Virus folks are looking increasingly silly, too.
That is interesting.
I've been seeing a bunch of things suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 had been present in Europe considerably earlier than official statistics show, but this is the first time I've seen it suggested that it may have been present during the previous flu season (winter 2018/2019).
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Honestly, I have no idea what to believe at this point.
This has been my position for a long time now. Moreover, I find it the only truly rational one (too much wishful thinking involved in either other option). Especially if this March 2019 thing from the last article I posted gets confirmed elsewhere - because it means we've had a virus circulating for a full year longer than we thought, and nobody noticed. Not even the people whose job is to compile various death statistics.
I don't think I've said it here - but I did on SSC when it still operated: most places (in Europe, at least; including Poland) you'd be hard pressed to spot the epidemic in aggregate death statistics. Moreover, where there are noticeable spikes in mortality, they tend to coincide with the most stringent mitigation measures. As is typical with everything COVID-related, it is too early to say anything definite, but one possible take is that the excess deaths may have actually been the result of the pandemic response.
If it does turn out that SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating in Europe last year, undetected, this should cause us to take a long, hard look at everything we've been doing to combat it. The economic damage done is plain to see, but could be justified if lives are saved. However, it does not look wildly implausible that fewer lives may have been lost if we did absolutely nothing.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Few people bother to change it every hour, too - many wear one mask over multiple days, in fact.
How often are y'all wearing masks? Like, I put one on (cloth mask, sewn by my wife) as I walk into a store. I'm in there for maybe 30 minutes. Then I take it off as I walk outside, because fuck, that shit is hot and annoying and everything says that being outside is chill, and it's not like I'm packed in with people at than point or anything.
I haven't worn a mask at all, despite having one with actual bio filters.
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@Carnage Captain Sweden ain't 'fraid of no viruses!
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
we've had a virus circulating for a full year longer than we thought, and nobody noticed. Not even the people whose job is to compile various death statistics.
This is not extraordinary at all. Take a guess at when HIV is reckoned to have first cropped up.
The 1980s.Right?
Wait, the 1970s seems more likely if it became an epidemic in the 80s.
Actually, it appears to have originated the early 20th century. The first documented case appears to have been in 1959, but of course the connection was only noticed _much_ later.Sure, COVID-19 is not AIDS, but for a virus deadly enough to have caused over 30 million deaths in the ca. 40 years since it was discovered, you would somehow expect it to have been noticed and recognised sooner.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage Captain Sweden ain't 'fraid of no viruses!
Honestly, the statistics for the infection isn't particularly scary.
Not even 1 in 100 in Sweden is wearing a mask at any time in public.
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@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
we've had a virus circulating for a full year longer than we thought, and nobody noticed. Not even the people whose job is to compile various death statistics.
This is not extraordinary at all. Take a guess at when HIV is reckoned to have first cropped up.
Which just makes the absolutely extraordinary response even sillier. And not just in retrospect, because it should absolutely be thought about if it happened before so many times.
Is physics the only science aware of its own limitations?
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
we've had a virus circulating for a full year longer than we thought, and nobody noticed. Not even the people whose job is to compile various death statistics.
This is not extraordinary at all. Take a guess at when HIV is reckoned to have first cropped up.
Which just makes the absolutely extraordinary response even sillier. And not just in retrospect, because it should absolutely be thought about if it happened before so many times.
Is physics the only science aware of its own limitations?
Mathematics and engineering is pretty limitations aware as well.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Is physics the only science aware of its own limitations?
I suspect some of the difference in attitudes lies in that physics doesn’t involve the general public, while medical science does. If the only ones you have to convince of a new development is people who are experts in the matter, I think you’ll find it much easier (assuming it’s well-founded, of course) than ignorant masses and politicians.
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@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That is interesting.
I've been seeing a bunch of things suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 had been present in Europe considerably earlier than official statistics show, but this is the first time I've seen it suggested that it may have been present during the previous flu season (winter 2018/2019).If this is true, there is a very important question to answer – why did it only overwhelm the intensive care units in some regions a year later. Because a spike in respiratory illness requiring intensive care like in Northern Italy would be hard to miss anywhere.
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@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Is physics the only science aware of its own limitations?
I suspect some of the difference in attitudes lies in that physics doesn’t involve the general public, while medical science does. If the only ones you have to convince of a new development is people who are experts in the matter, I think you’ll find it much easier (assuming it’s well-founded, of course) than ignorant masses and politicians.
I would even formulate that as a general rule: all (non-junk) sciences are aware if their limitations, but such awareness is almost never communicated to the laity.
The only
thing about physics is that there is no direct connection to general public and policy making (there are several layers of applied sciences and engineering). It's not hard to image the shitshow that would occur if someone made some truly disruptive (for human society) discovery. For example, teleportation.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
For example, teleportation.
Funny you mention that. Just yesterday our national TV station has bragged about acquiring a teleportation device, and used it on live TV to summon a polling expert to the studio! I'll find a clip when I get back home.
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Kamil-Podlesak said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
For example, teleportation.
Funny you mention that. Just yesterday our national TV station has bragged about acquiring a teleportation device, and used it on live TV to summon a polling expert to the studio! I'll find a clip when I get back home.
Did the expert have pointy ears?
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@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Is physics the only science aware of its own limitations?
I suspect some of the difference in attitudes lies in that physics doesn’t involve the general public, while medical science does. If the only ones you have to convince of a new development is people who are experts in the matter, I think you’ll find it much easier (assuming it’s well-founded, of course) than ignorant masses and politicians.
Still involves humans, though.
"Science progresses one funeral at a time".
– Max Planck (paraphrased)
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Is physics the only science aware of its own limitations?
I suspect some of the difference in attitudes lies in that physics doesn’t involve the general public, while medical science does. If the only ones you have to convince of a new development is people who are experts in the matter, I think you’ll find it much easier (assuming it’s well-founded, of course) than ignorant masses and politicians.
Still involves humans, though.
"Science progresses one funeral at a time".
– Max Planck (paraphrased)That tends to only be the case for the very groundbreaking stuff. Where the contribution is not shaking up long-established basic models, the science establishment tends to digest it fairly easily, and that's by far the most common situation anyway.
The last really big paradigm shift in the sciences that I'm aware of was plate tectonics. Cosmology has had some big changes since then, but they didn't really require staff changes precisely because the cosmologists tended to be not too attached to their theories; they knew they were all just proposed theories and that they'd need to collect evidence for anything to become shored up. The basic theories of physics and chemistry haven't changed much for a while, but since the key theories are all tricky non-linear ones then people aren't too surprised at strange new phenomena cropping up (and they've a strong tradition of using simplified approximate models). Bioscience is a hugely complicated mess, but not likely to be greatly shaken up any time soon; working practices are changing hugely, but that's mostly regarded as being for the better.
It's not that future paradigm shifts are impossible, but it's hard to see where they'll come from at the moment. (Unless someone invents a working perpetual motion machine or anti-gravity or a warp drive or something crazy like that.) Yes, there is a major change working its way through — the impact of computers and robotics — but that's usually welcomed at senior level as it tends to end up improving the quality of experimental data and allowing more complex models to be used. That sort of thing is more regarded as “I so wish I'd had this when I was a new postdoc!”
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@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That tends to only be the case for the very groundbreaking stuff. Where the contribution is not shaking up long-established basic models, the science establishment tends to digest it fairly easily, and that's by far the most common situation anyway.
The last really big paradigm shift in the sciences that I'm aware of was plate tectonics.
It happens with smaller stuff too. OK, not necessarily funerals exactly, but look at the history of bacteria caused ulcers.
Also, and more relevant in this case, is that we perceive a lot more certainty in things like masks and how they work. We have this idea, I think from TVs and movies, that you run an experiment and you get an answer. But the reality is that there are a lot of uncertainties and for stuff like this we're doing indirect observations and things are never as controlled as we'd like and our controls don't match real conditions as much as we'd like, in part because there are just so many different conditions. And we probably aren't even aware of all of the important factors.
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@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That tends to only be the case for the very groundbreaking stuff. Where the contribution is not shaking up long-established basic models, the science establishment tends to digest it fairly easily, and that's by far the most common situation anyway.
The last really big paradigm shift in the sciences that I'm aware of was plate tectonics.
It happens with smaller stuff too. OK, not necessarily funerals exactly, but look at the history of bacteria caused ulcers.
Also, and more relevant in this case, is that we perceive a lot more certainty in things like masks and how they work. We have this idea, I think from TVs and movies, that you run an experiment and you get an answer. But the reality is that there are a lot of uncertainties and for stuff like this we're doing indirect observations and things are never as controlled as we'd like and our controls don't match real conditions as much as we'd like, in part because there are just so many different conditions. And we probably aren't even aware of all of the important factors.
Another problem is that you don't have an alternate earth as a control group to figure out what would really have happened in a different scenario. Sure, you have lots of different states/counties/countries/whatever-units doing different things you can compare, but that's confounded by there being a bajillion other confounding variables in which they also differ (or, for example, "country had no lockdown" vs "had lockdown" doesn't actually mean nothing at all changed for the former). We can probably extract some statistical signal out of this in hindsight, but it's not simple.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Review:
Con: Masks quickly develop large holes, then disappear. This renders them ineffective.
Pro: Tasty!
Overall: Highly recommend
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@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That is interesting.
I've been seeing a bunch of things suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 had been present in Europe considerably earlier than official statistics show, but this is the first time I've seen it suggested that it may have been present during the previous flu season (winter 2018/2019).If this is true, there is a very important question to answer – why did it only overwhelm the intensive care units in some regions a year later. Because a spike in respiratory illness requiring intensive care like in Northern Italy would be hard to miss anywhere.
This is a only a very rough hypothesis, but possibly the overwhelming happened precisely because we knew COVID-19 was a big deal.
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@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
This renders them ineffective.
In other w... wait, it's the non-garage thread. You heard nothing, carry on.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Fun fact: masks and chin guards are equally effective at stopping the virus.
I got the impression that the masks aren't to protect you, they're to protect everyone else from your germs. You spread fewer particles with a mask than without. (Not "none", just "fewer." Statistically useful, but far from a perfect defense.)
At the cost of breathing back in the germs you just breathed out. Not only can this concentrate coronavirus enough to turn an asymptomatic infection into an illness, it can also do the same with other nasty bugs you don't want in your body. (Look up "pleurisy" for one of the more common ugly side-effects of excessive mask wearing.)
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@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That is interesting.
I've been seeing a bunch of things suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 had been present in Europe considerably earlier than official statistics show, but this is the first time I've seen it suggested that it may have been present during the previous flu season (winter 2018/2019).If this is true, there is a very important question to answer – why did it only overwhelm the intensive care units in some regions a year later. Because a spike in respiratory illness requiring intensive care like in Northern Italy would be hard to miss anywhere.
This is a only a very rough hypothesis, but possibly the overwhelming happened precisely because we knew COVID-19 was a big deal.
That seems unlikely unless you think the people who either needed to go to the ER or died where hypochondriacs.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PotatoEngineer said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Fun fact: masks and chin guards are equally effective at stopping the virus.
I got the impression that the masks aren't to protect you, they're to protect everyone else from your germs. You spread fewer particles with a mask than without. (Not "none", just "fewer." Statistically useful, but far from a perfect defense.)
At the cost of breathing back in the germs you just breathed out. Not only can this concentrate coronavirus enough to turn an asymptomatic infection into an illness, it can also do the same with other nasty bugs you don't want in your body. (Look up "pleurisy" for one of the more common ugly side-effects of excessive mask wearing.)
Yeah, as far as I know the position of our national health institute is still that keeping proper distance is much more valuable than wearing a mask, and any positive effect of wearing a (unrated or lowly-rated) mask is more than undone by the natural tendency to then not keep distance as much.
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@PleegWat I have at least some smart people with credentials agreeing with me!
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@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
It’s my understanding that if a Latin plural were desired, it should be viri (or virī) rather than virii anyway.
Wikipedia says "vira":
(Yes, the page specifically mentions "virus" for some reason.)
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@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
If it does turn out that SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating in Europe last year, undetected, this should cause us to take a long, hard look at everything we've been doing to combat it.
You're jumping to conclusions. Even if COVID-19 mutates slowly, mutations are a much more likely explanation for why it suddenly became much more contagious and dangerous.
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@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
If it does turn out that SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating in Europe last year, undetected, this should cause us to take a long, hard look at everything we've been doing to combat it.
You're jumping to conclusions. Even if COVID-19 mutates slowly, mutations are a much more likely explanation for why it suddenly became much more contagious and dangerous.
Or... it’s been an endemic virus that someone was researching/ resequencing for various raisins... and then there was a simian breakout...
?Wait, wasn’t that a recent movie remake?...
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@M_Adams said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
endemic virus that someone was researching/ resequencing for various raisins
Bioweapon conspiracy theory thread is
.
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@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
If it does turn out that SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating in Europe last year, undetected, this should cause us to take a long, hard look at everything we've been doing to combat it.
You're jumping to conclusions. Even if COVID-19 mutates slowly, mutations are a much more likely explanation for why it suddenly became much more contagious and dangerous.
You're making hell of a lot of assumptions in that post. But you either already know that or won't understand anyway.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That is interesting.
I've been seeing a bunch of things suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 had been present in Europe considerably earlier than official statistics show, but this is the first time I've seen it suggested that it may have been present during the previous flu season (winter 2018/2019).If this is true, there is a very important question to answer – why did it only overwhelm the intensive care units in some regions a year later. Because a spike in respiratory illness requiring intensive care like in Northern Italy would be hard to miss anywhere.
This is a only a very rough hypothesis, but possibly the overwhelming happened precisely because we knew COVID-19 was a big deal.
That seems unlikely unless you think the people who either needed to go to the ER or died where hypochondriacs.
It's not the patients that would have caused the issue, but the doctors.
Also, I'm not sure you meant to say ER, because we were talking about intensive care.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Look up "pleurisy" for one of the more common ugly side-effects of excessive mask wearing.
Citation needed. (and not the story currently doing the rounds on social media)
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@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
If it does turn out that SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating in Europe last year, undetected, this should cause us to take a long, hard look at everything we've been doing to combat it.
You're jumping to conclusions. Even if COVID-19 mutates slowly, mutations are a much more likely explanation for why it suddenly became much more contagious and dangerous.
You're making hell of a lot of assumptions in that post. But you either already know that or won't understand anyway.
Not more than the guy I'm replying to.
Latin declension - Wikipedia
